For those that say he should be stripped of his titles, who should be given the wins for those? A majority of the 2nd place racers (3 of the 4, I believe) are PROVEN, admitted dopers that were caught and sanctioned within a few years of those races. Should THEY be given the titles? :what:
Considering he never failed a test, is now retired, the dates in question were a long time ago, and many other reasons, I believe he should keep his titles. He may well have been doping (part of me still hopes not and don't understand how he could have passed EVERY test if he had been), but also feel that in that era it was a moot point since everyone he was beating was also doping.... Doesn't make it right, but it would be beyond hypocritical to take the titles away from him and give it to other dopers.

No, I do not think he should be punished in any way. It should be either an undisputed positive test, or proper legal process for "non-analytic" accusations. Civil court level, witnesses under oath etc., not arbitration by a vindictive private company hired to run Olympic anti-doping and trying hard to get into business with all professional sports.

+1
take a quick look at who the USADA actually are. A private organisation with no govt oversight that works on contract. Do people really think they should be able to act as some sort of super cop, judge, jury and executioner.
I for one hope the UCI tell them to get F**cked - produce the physical hard evidence or through court with all witness statements under oath and subject to cross examination.
If I were a professional sports person I would be very concerned that some private company can ruin my career, reputation and income without sanction from the sports governing body or a court of law.

I do believe that Armstrong doped. Not only because of the testimony from several riders who I personally like and respect, such as Leipheimer and Hincapie, but also because that was the EPO era. I find it very hard to believe that Armstrong, or anyone for that matter, would have been able to go up against a doped-up peloton and succeed seven times.

That said, though, these are performance-enhancing drugs, not performance-giving drugs. People commonly say that doping is what gives you that final 0.5% - 1% gain in order to win after you've already done everything you legally could to come back with fairly good results. I believe that if the whole peloton (including Armstrong) had been clean at the time, he still would have been fairly successful, with possibly a few TdF wins to his name. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

However, here is why I do not agree with the sanctions and suspensions, even though I believe that Armstrong, and many others, used performance-enhancing drugs during that time: This entire case is concerned with things that happened over a decade ago. It's largely irrelevant; I understand why those active riders who testified against Armstrong and admitted to doping were suspended from racing, but this case is centered around a rider who has been retired from professional bike racing for years. The whole thing seems like a waste of time and money.

I would be much more supportive of all parties involved if USADA and UCI came forth and said, "We messed up; our tests at the time did not catch what we wanted to catch. Here's what we will be doing from now on, in the hopes that something like that does not happen again."

However, in my eyes, that would also require all guilty riders to fess up and offer conclusive proof that they are clean, whether retired or active as a rider or other team member in professional racing.

It does not matter what one believes, what matters is actual Evidence, Belief is in something you are not certain of. So from the lack of Evidence I KNOW Lance is Innocent.

Blur, these are the facts, today it has been announced that 26, yes 26 witnesses and 11, yes 11 former team mates have given serious evidence against him, blur thats not a lack of evidence thats a mountain of evidence are you saying that all of these guys are payed off and its a massive conspiricy?

Blur if somebody shoots somebody and there is no gun found and no hard evidence apart from 26 witnesses, mate thats enough evidence to well n truly say he is guilty, i cannot believe the amount of people that chose to keep their heads buried in the sand about this issue.
Its the nature of the game that the cheats keep well in front of the testers, they would not attempt it if they couldnt stay in front and avoid detection.
How many times did Marion Jones get caught? none, thats how many, she was tested over n over again, it is very very naive to suggest or think that these cheats are not miles ifront of the testers..
The evidence in this case is so overwhelming only the most bias and naive person could think that he was clean in his career.
Yes i now have my flack jacket on waiting for the pages of neg rep but thats ok, i cant sit back n listen to this dribble any longer...... cheers

and still with all the press releases in the last couple of days, USADA don't have any actual evidence...

11 Riders who lied about using drugs until pressured into confessions and then only admitted to using drugs during the years they road with Lance. Coincidently they all say they were clean since 2006, and now are heroes for help fight against doping.

Money transfers to a Doctor. No actual evidence that the money was paying for drugs!

He is guilty as sin, but this is a witchhunt, a waste of tax payer money, and becoming tiresome.

If USADA want to do good, then witchhunt the doctors, team managers etc who brought this culture to cycling and get them out of the sport.

Look at this point despite the lack of physical evidence it pretty likely that Lance doped. However it you care to believe the testimony of others and take into account others who have been caught doping it seems to me that in this period the bulk of the cyclist were involved some levels of taking performance enhancing substances that they felt were banned or could be banned and so they hid their use.

Certainly not right, but what do you do about it? Clearly the UCI was only able to catch some, but not all. Strip titles? Sure you can't but where does it stop? If you stop a the first clean drug test then it is Lance. If you stop where there are no alligations of doping you probably stop a some rider who is rather obsure and because he never won was never investigaged.

The best result that can come from this is to revise testing proceedures to minimize doping going forward. What is done is done. We will never know what a clean Lance could have done vs a clean Jan Ulrich? We only know that a dopped up Lance beat a dopped up Jan time and time again. Each rider still gave 110% of what they had.

+1
take a quick look at who the USADA actually are. A private organisation with no govt oversight that works on contract. Do people really think they should be able to act as some sort of super cop, judge, jury and executioner.
I for one hope the UCI tell them to get F**cked - produce the physical hard evidence or through court with all witness statements under oath and subject to cross examination.
If I were a professional sports person I would be very concerned that some private company can ruin my career, reputation and income without sanction from the sports governing body or a court of law.

Lance signed contracts with private companies in which he agreed to adhere to the rules. He was on the payroll of private companies that also required him to follow the rules. I fail to see why there is any problem with a private company enforcing the rules for private companies. In other fields this occurs all the time. Many contracts include clauses that require the participants to handle grievances through arbitration. Once again, private companies, not government agencies. Assuming you are currently employed by a private company, and that you are not under contract that requires cause for termination, you could have your career ruined for no reason at all, other than someone deciding you are no longer wanted.

As for those who argue that it is a game of he said, she said, there is other evidence that is not hearsay. More than one expert has concluded that Armstrong's blood samples show all the hallmarks of blood manipulation. When you combine this with the bank statements (amazing that anyone would pay this much to a physician for medical services, particularly when there were team doctors and he had health insurance) and rider testimonies, it is all pretty damning.

For those that say he should be stripped of his titles, who should be given the wins for those? A majority of the 2nd place racers (3 of the 4, I believe) are PROVEN, admitted dopers that were caught and sanctioned within a few years of those races. Should THEY be given the titles? :what:
Considering he never failed a test, is now retired, the dates in question were a long time ago, and many other reasons, I believe he should keep his titles. He may well have been doping (part of me still hopes not and don't understand how he could have passed EVERY test if he had been), but also feel that in that era it was a moot point since everyone he was beating was also doping.... Doesn't make it right, but it would be beyond hypocritical to take the titles away from him and give it to other dopers.

Sent from my Galaxy S3

Pretty much my thoughts, at least the first paragraph. Virtually every significant cyclist of the last 10 years has either been caught cheating or has very high indicators of cheating -- they haven't been "caught" because they come from smaller countries who understandably don't want to launch an investigation to tarnish one of their own national heros (way to go USADA!), and the Cycling body clearly doesn't care to look into things. I mean, I remember a few years ago during the Tour, someone got their hands on the "indicators" from the testing, and I recognized every name on the list (and I'm not a hardcore fan by any means).

For those talking about evidence, there is no actual "evidence" that can be derived from the tests for EPO and blood doping. The tests can only generate circumstantial evidence due to other markers or chemicals that are found, that "point to" the stuff that Lance is alleged to have been doing. So, the best evidence you can get here is either admission or eye-witness testimony! Lance will never admit it, but we have eye-witnesses in spades, it seems.

Do you think Lance's buddies like George and Levi would rat him out if it weren't true? I mean, the evidence isn't coming from perjured "liars" ie, Landis, anymore -- we have Lance's best soldiers, who are rich and famous men because of the success they helped Lance achieve, who are saying they, and Lance, used. Given the nature of the alleged doping, and the fact that there is no test that could tell us that Lance was injecting previously extracted red blood cells and the like, I'm really not sure what better evidence we could have at this point.

It does not matter what one believes, what matters is actual Evidence, Belief is in something you are not certain of. So from the lack of Evidence I KNOW Lance is Innocent.

Well, Lance made certain of that by the strategic way that he handled the USADA charges, didn't he.

I mean, I didn't expect him to come out and admit it, either, but he made certain that there would be no certainty. I lost a little respect for him in that way. But it also makes me wonder if he hasn't paid attention to Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Andy Pettitte's approaches to the confession/denial game. The former 2 denied, fought and fought, and even though arguably the best, most talented players ever at their respective positions, have no respect in the game anymore. Pettitte is the only one that really seemed to come clean. He is also the only one who still has a career and/or any respect in the public eye.

The interview and statements from Leipheimer are pretty moving. I really don't blame the riders for what was going on -- the pressure to compete, the desire to succeed, the fact that it is only a game, after all -- no one's life is at risk due to his actions -- and the fact that there really don't seem to be known long-term effects of EPO and blood doping, to a 19 yr old trying to get on a world-famous cycling team. I have to tell you, I make the same decision he did if I'm in his shoes.

I actually think Lance would come out better in the end if he followed a similar course -- "we knew everyone else was doing it, we felt we had no choice, we hired doctors to help us do it the "right way," I know it was wrong now but at the time, I didn't know what else to do ..." You know, blame it on the Europeans, tell us that if he was gonna dope, he was gonna do it right and all the way, and urge people not to do it now!

And what of all those extra "team only" Treks that made it to ebay and are alleged to have been sold to help fund the doping program, didn't Trek have to know what was going on? Same for Gorski. Not to mention Trek shutting down LeMond for speaking out about Lance's doping.

...Blur if somebody shoots somebody and there is no gun found and no hard evidence apart from 26 witnesses, mate thats enough evidence to well n truly say he is guilty, i cannot believe the about of people that chose to keep their heads buried in the sand about this issue...

I actually think Lance would come out better in the end if he followed a similar course -- "we knew everyone else was doing it, we felt we had no choice, we hired doctors to help us do it the "right way," I know it was wrong now but at the time, I didn't know what else to do ..." You know, blame it on the Europeans, tell us that if he was gonna dope, he was gonna do it right and all the way, and urge people not to do it now!

That's possibly the worst thing that could be done at this stage. If we want to move forward, admissions, apologies, and plans for progress need to come forward. The blame-game is appropriate for the kindergarten playground, nowhere else.

Did Lance dope?,most likely. Was everyone clean ,no way. What does the USADA have to do with events that happen in France ?I know Lance is a American ,but to question events from another country and from another time seems to be a witch hunt ,publicity stunt.

For those that say he should be stripped of his titles, who should be given the wins for those?

Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the GC standings for the 2002 Tour because it was Armstrong's 4th win, right in the middle of his streak. I had to go all the way down to Carlos Sastre in 10th place to find the first rider that hadn't been caught, confessed, or implicated in doping.